Part 1: Lay of the Land

# Part 1: Lay of the Land

Before we touch any hardware, we need to build a mental model. This part covers everything you need to understand before you start writing embedded Rust code. More importantly, it gives you a framework for learning anything new in the ecosystem after this workshop is over.

## Who Am I?

[Omar Hiari](https://www.linkedin.com/in/omarhiari/)

- Embedded Rust Blogger ([blog.theembeddedrustacean.com](https://blog.theembeddedrustacean.com/))
- Author of [The Simplified Embedded Rust Series](https://www.theembeddedrustacean.com/) of Books
- Publisher of [The Embedded Rustacean](https://www.theembeddedrustacean.com/subscribe) newsletter
- Creator of the [uFerris](https://www.theembeddedrustacean.com/uferris) learning platform you're holding right now

---

## The Problem

Embedded Rust is exciting. The ecosystem is growing fast. But that growth creates a real challenge for learners:

- **Tutorials go stale.** APIs change. Examples that worked six months ago might not compile today.
- **Examples cover one use case.** A blinky tutorial shows you how to blink *one LED on one pin*. But what if you need a different pin? A different configuration? A different peripheral entirely?
- **Device and HAL crates are often underdocumented.** Newer crates may have minimal docs, incomplete examples, or no usage guide at all. You need to know how to extract what you need from the source and API surface.
- **Copy-paste gets you started, but doesn't get you far.** If you can only reproduce what someone else wrote, you're stuck the moment you need something slightly different.

<p style="color: #D1462B; font-weight: 600; margin-top: 0.8em;">AI tools struggle here too. Stale APIs, incomplete docs, and fast-moving targets mean generated code often won't compile or work correctly. Foundations are necessary.</p>

---

## Why Are You Here?

You're going to learn how to **fish**, not just eat fish.

After this workshop, you'll know how to:
- Navigate the embedded Rust ecosystem
- Read crate docs.rs documentation effectively
- Adapt examples to different boards and use cases

---

## What I'm Going to Teach You

A **mental model**:

> **Instantiate → Configure → Control**

And how to find the answers in the docs when nobody wrote a tutorial for your exact use case.

Let's start with the ecosystem.

The Embedded Rustacean · Rust Week 2026